At this point, we have pretty much no concrete info about Sony’s next gen console, other than we are pretty sure that it will probably be revealed some time this year. With nothing solid, rumors continue to swirl and this time its in relation to the possibility that Sony may be retiring the familiar Dual Shock design that we’ve all come to know and love.

According to a report by CVG, two separate game development studios that are apparently working on game’s for Sony’s next-gen console have said that the controller has gone through many iterations, but none of them have looked anything like the Dual Shock. It appears that Sony is experimenting with all sorts of different interface options including biometric scanning and touch screens and it seems that the Vita’s interface is having a large influence on Sony’s experiments. At this point though, who knows what that is all about, Sony could truly be looking to do something new or they could just be looking to throw folks off a bit ahead of the official announcement.

Back when Sony announced the PS3, the controller they showed with it looked nothing like the Dual Shock and was met with quite a frigid reception. By the time the system actually shipped, the PS3 controller had magically become very similar in shape to the PS2 controller. While I don’t doubt that Sony could be looking a several different controller options, I’d be surprised if they drastically changed the primary controller. Players generally don’t complain about the Dual Shock, its pretty comfortable during long gaming sessions and rarely requires plugging in for a recharge. Now what I could see them doing is coming out with secondary controllers that utilized some type of new design, that way they could introduce something relatively new while avoiding the possibility of severe player backlash.

Will Sony choose this moment to make a drastic change to the way we interact with their gaming platform, at this point nobody knows, but we do know one thing, it won’t be long now till we know exactly what their planning.

I am the Co-Ceo of DLT Digital Media. We are a company that is focused on developing new and innovative web properties in addition to developing WordPress based web sites for others. But before I was all that, I was a gamer.